wowhead
Latest
Wowhead screenshot contest
My long-time personal favorite WoW database site, Wowhead, is having another one of their contests: "The Lost Screenshots." This time, all you have to do is submit screenshots for NPCs, items, or other things that don't have one already. The winners will be the three people who submit approved screenshots for the greatest number of entries. Win what, you ask? First prize – Acer 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor Second prize – BFG GeForce 7900 GS Video Card Third prize – Logitech MX518 Optical Gaming Mouse That's some fairly serious prizes. Note that dressing room and model viewer screenshots are disallowed. There are a few other tips and rules for the contest on Wowhead's contest page. I'm pretty excited about this one; it sounds like a lot of fun hunting down things and taking photos of them. (But then again, I loved Pokémon Snap, too.) The contest started at 12:01 AM EST yesterday, and runs until 11:59 PM EST on Tuesday, September 11. So get snapping![image via this excellent Dark Legacy comic]
WoWDigger adds wishlists, quest and faction tracking
Since we last profiled the database site, WoWDigger.com, it has evolved into more than just a WoWHead clone. I found new functions that were helpful in planning my online activities.Using their downloadable client, you can create an Armory-like page of your character on the site. Then you can create a Wishlist duplicate template of your equipped gear and swap in pieces that you want to acquire to see exactly how it affects your stats, resists, damage ratios, mp5, crit chance, defense, etc. Great for planning on how to get that last bit of resilience to hit the cap or balancing your +heal and +spell damage.Another function I like is the personalized quest page. You now have an offline list of all the quests in your quest log. Plan your next step to complete the quest and read up on any strats you'll need to know beforehand. Also, the site tracks all your reputation gains so you'll know how close you are to the next rep level for every faction in the game.If you're like me and enjoy extensive planning and researching offline, I recommend checking out the latest improvements to WoWDigger. With CTProfiles down for now, its a great alternative. If anyone knows of other sites that provide similar services, feel free to list them in the comments.
Lootables throws its hat in the item database ring
Apparently when Wowhead's million dollar sale hit the news, other website folks paid attention. First WoWDigger announced their bid to get in on the action, and now another site, Lootables (tipped to us by Birgitte, one of the creators), is going to give making an item database a go.My first reaction was "who needs another one?" but after messing around with the site for a few minutes, it doesn't look half bad. You've got your standard item search, and one feature there I've never seen on other sites is the ability to do searches by what drops in each dungeon-- yes, on Wowhead and Thottbot, you can look up dungeon bosses to see what they drop, but whenever I'm trying to figure out what instance to run, the first thing I do is check WoWWiki to click on each of the boss names in one place and see what they drop. Having everything in the dungeon at a glance is pretty nice. (Update: Wowhead can do this) The other big item of note is that Lootables actually links to each of the other databases in its listings. I didn't see a place to put comments (which are a huge draw on the other databases), but considering all the comments about the item are just a few clicks away, maybe they decided they didn't need them. You can also use the colored boxes near each item to "store" it in a dialogue on the right sidebar, and the site remembers what items you put there, so item comparison is super easy. Very nice feature.And the last thing I noticed that separates Lootables from other databases is that they've actually created leveling guides for all the professions, complete with links to all the recipes and items you need. Creating an item listing is one thing, but showing clearly how to use those items is definitely helpful.Birgitte also said she was looking for feedback, so if you guys have it, let's hear it. The only real suggestion I have is to come up with some way for us to see the items-- so far, the best these databases have all come up with is to use user-submitted pictures, but surely there must be some way to both avoid legal pitholes with Blizzard and show us what the items look like.
Thottbot introduces interface upgrades, new scoring system
I sure thought Thott had given up putting new features on his site (since things haven't changed in so long), but apparently not-- just the other day, he introduced Thottbot 3.10, including a new "scoring system," which is customizable so that you can determine for yourself just which weapons you want.Basically, every item now has a score associated with it, and that score is based on a number of different qualities, including base stats, armor, gem slots, resistances, spells, combat ratings-- anything that you'd ever associate with an ingame item. And then (and here's where it gets really cool), you can even change those score ratings yourself-- if having mp5 on a certain item is hugely important to you as a Shaman, for instance, you can add value to the mp5 stat, which will give those items a higher score. And custom score settings can even be turned into a permalink, which means players can easily trade their own custom scoring sets with each other. Incredibly powerful little feature.And Thott's added some awesome Javascript features to the listings as well-- you can now customize listed displays of items much more than ever before, and since it's done with AJAX, browsing loads faster as well. Really amazing job.Now ever since Thottbot and Wowhead moved under the same banner, players have said they wanted them to stay separate. But if this is the kind of thing we're going to be seeing coming out of these sites, bring it on-- I'd love to see the score feature brought into Wowhead's interface, and I'm sure a lot of people would love to use their same scoring profile on both sites to see what kind of information they can dig up.
Addon Spotlight: Lightheaded (and DoubleWide)
Quests are a pain sometimes. You may already know that database sites like wowhead.com can help, since players reliably contribute their wisdom about the best way to solve quests there. The comments these players left have helped me many times when I knew that a certain series of quests might be hard and wanted to make a plan for it before logging in.But after I've already started playing, I typically don't like to bother with external programs and websites. To illustrate, consider the following hypothetical situation: you're in the middle of a quest you thought would be simple and those Disgusting Whosamawidgets simply refuse to drop the required Sticky Yellow Fluid. You've been wandering around for an hour killing (and getting killed by) these horrid creatures, and you feel stopping to open up your web browser and check Wowhead would only add to your frustration. Finally you call out in desperate all-caps leetspeak on the general channel, only to be thoroughly ignored! Then finally one wise and tender-hearted player informs you that were actually supposed to be killing the Grotesque Whosamawidgets just next door, not the Disgusting ones. You thank her, of course, but in your gut you're still feeling dumb and regretting having wasted so much time and energy.It's enough to make you feel lightheaded indeed! Thankfully that's where Cladhaire comes to the rescue with his addon designed to bring those helpful sorts of people and their comments on Wowhead right into the game for you. Lightheaded (the addon) opens up just to the right of your questlog and shows whatever wowhead's commenters have to say about the quest you click on. It only loads that portion of the quest comment database your quest is in, too. This helps to save on memory usage, save on trips to a website, and also save on massive frustration all in one lovely addon.And... on a related note, consider using DoubleWide (shown above, working with Lightheaded) to make the questlog into two panels instead of one. This makes quests and quest lists so much easier to read, Blizzard really should incorporate it into the standard interface.
Amanna's Gem Research Center
Amanna over at the Adventures in Azeroth blog has put together a useful "gem research center" for finding gems to fill those slots. Basically, she's just created some filters on Wowhead for you, so that if you need to find all the purple gems, all the Epic rated gems, or even something as specific as all of the Resto epic gems, the info's just a click away.Don't forget as well that gems aren't necessarily permanent-- while putting a gem in a slot uses that gem up for good, you can still place another, better gem in that same slot. So since this guide is here, now might be a good time to go back and look at gear you picked up and slotted a while ago, and see if there are any easy upgrades to find now. Amanna also has a list of BoP gems, so even if you're not a JC or don't have one available, there are places you can go to get your own shiny rocks.Definitely worth a bookmark. Amanna is also planning on putting something like this (a list of Wowhead filters, I believe) together for gear, so we'll keep an eye out for that as well.
Exclusive Interview: Wowhead and Affinity Media
I was actually running Wailing Caverns with a few guildies from IctfB on last Friday night around midnight when I heard the news: Wowhead had sold for $1 million to Affinity Media, the company that supposedly ran IGE, the notorious goldsellers. We'd received a tip from someone who claimed he used to work for IGE, and we rushed to get the story up and also make sure it was right-- word was that Affinity didn't own IGE any more, and that Wowhead had maybe sold because of that.Still, in the week or so since, players have had plenty of questions. Did Wowhead sell out to goldsellers? Did Affinity really sell IGE and are they really out of the goldselling business? And why did Affinity want to buy yet another database when they already owned both Allakazham and Thottbot? And perhaps most importantly, what kind of changes would come for Wowhead?WoW Insider got a chance to sit down for an exclusive chat with both John Maffei, president of the ZAM content network at Affinity Media, and Tim Sullivan, CEO of Wowhead, to talk about Affinity's past, the sale of Wowhead, and what's coming next. They wanted to clear up questions, and we wanted to get answers. To read the full, exclusive interview, click the link below.
WoW Firefox search plugins
How many times a day do we all search Thottbot, Allakhazam, WoWWiki, Wowhead and others? It gets old really fast to type in the address or go dig it out of bookmarks every time right? About 50 of you are right now thinking, "geez ya noob, like thottbot is my homepage!" Before you get all huffy and start chargin' your fireball, realize that there is a better way to look-up those [ACME Pauldrons of the Whale]. Think of them as WoW UI add-ons for Firefox. What? That's right, IRL WoW add-ons for your Firefox browser. Check out these search plug-ins that you may get some use out of if you look up things like a banshee. By the way, I've heard that Lady Sylvanas can Google stuff like nobody's business, but that is unconfirmed as of this writing.Firefox search plug-ins for WoW-WoW Armory (both US and EU versions)-Allakhazam Quests-Allakhazam Items-Allakhazam Mobs-Curse gaming add-ons-WoW Official forums-WoWWiki-Wowhead-WowdirectoryThe links to all of these search engines are at Mozilla's "mycroft" website, which lets users build their own search plug-ins for their favorite sites. For any of the search plug-ins, simply click the name of the site you wish to install, and Firefox does the rest. Our very own search plug-inAlso, I am proud to introduce the official WoW Insider Firefox search plugin that you can now download for your WoW Insider perusing pleasure (without having to type the address or leave your browser). Please use this plug-in responsibly, no members of the Burning Legion are allowed to use this search. Enjoy
Wowhead down; implementing gear profiles?
The saga of Wowhead continues: the site is currently down, as in no loading at all. My first thought was that Blizzard's maintenance and the extra traffic from the sale news brought them down, but they've never experienced uptime problems in the past, so that seems unlikely.And then Centipede (thanks!) sent us this forum thread in which someone who claims to be a Wowhead moderator says it might be down so they can implement "character profiles and gear wish lists (ala CTProfiles)" that they were supposedly hoping to put up before "the end of the month," which is of course right about now.So when the site comes back up, maybe we'll see some brand new features to play around with. We'll keep an eye on it and let you know more when we do.Update: Site's back up intermittently with no apparent changes so far. Your guess is as good as ours what's happening here.
New database site: WoWDigger
For those of you who are still a little uncomfortable about Wowhead, here's a new alternative. By IncGamers, the people behind the venerable WorldofWar.net, WoWDigger aims to fulfill your databse needs and then some:WoWDigger is not only a World of Warcraft game database, but also a place where your character matters. Upload your character and see your recipes, quest log, bank, talents and more!. Choose what information you share with your friends, the WoW community or your guild!IncGamers has always been staunchly anti-RMT (real money transfer), so you don't have to worry about that when using their sites; they promise that "There will be at no point gold selling adverts or any affilition to gold selling on WoWDigger." And with "choose what information you share..." in their description, they seem to be taking a bit of a jab at the Armory, with its privacy concerns. Furthermore, they are trying to keep the site banner-free:As you may have noticed the site contains no banners. We intend to keep the site this way as best we can with the backing of the community. If you like the site and use it you can help the dev team by pressing the donate button on the right, this will go to cover server hosting costs. We know such a site like this is resource hungry but are going to do our best to keep the site ad free. Overall it looks like a decent site; a little bare-bones in terms of content at the moment, of course, because it just started, but once it gets off the ground it might provide a nice alternative to the Affinity triad. Personally, I plan to still use Wowhead (due to design, speed, and content), but more options never hurt. [via Into the Web]
Analysing the $1mil acquistion of WoW database site
Last week, World of Warcraft database site Wowhead sold for reportedly a whopping US$1 million to Affinity Media. Our sister site WoW Insider takes a look back on the deal and its implications to the community.First comes the fear of goldfarming influence. When the news first broke, there was talk of Affinity's relation to goldfarming company IGE. All ties have purportedly been cut by Affinity, clinching the deal for Wowhead. To be sure, no goldfarming or power-leveling ads have been shown on the database site. Affinity CEO Mark Jaffei claimed in a Q&A that the original leaker of the acquisition talked up goldfarming has financial interest in a competitive site.More importantly comes the fear of non-competition, as the three biggest WoW databases -- Wowhead, Thottbot and Allakhazam -- are now all owned by the same company. The battle for traffic hits had pushed the sites to improve the quality of their databases, and there is worry that Affinity will not require competition the three sites. Only time will tell if those fears prove valid. Check out WoW Insider for a thorough analysis of the news.
A look back at the sale of Wowhead.com
Now that we've had a few days to think about it, I think it's worth taking a bigger look at the Wowhead acqusition news that broke over the weekend. On Friday evening, a blogger named Ahmed Farooq posted that as a person who'd previously worked to acquire websites for goldseller IGE, he'd heard from "three different sources," all unnamed, that Wowhead had sold to Affinity Media for $1 million. That's when we reported on it, and more than a few other sites also picked up the story. We also were one of the first sites to report in conjunction that Affinity Media had supposedly sold IGE, and claimed they were no longer in the business of goldselling.On Saturday, Wowhead posted a confirmation on their site, and then this Q&A with their CEO and the head of Affinity Media, John Maffei. They claim to be "100% sure" that since Affinity reportedly sold IGE, Wowhead will never carry gold ads. Farooq, the original tipster, posted an update on his site that says Affinity was "still very much involved with IGE," but Wowhead's Q&A says "the individual who leaked the story about the Wowhead sale" (apparently Farooq) also "owns competitive content properties," including a real-money trading (goldselling) site, and calls the act of that person spreading rumors about Wowhead "the height of hypocrisy." By all appearances, Affinity Media is no longer associated with IGE at all, and at the moment, the proof is in the pudding: there are currently no gold ads on Wowhead or Thottbot.As for IGE, this report about the CEO at the Virtual Goods Summit makes it seem as though there are stormy waters ahead for their company and the entire gold selling market.
Wowhead on the acquisition
This is what I like to see. Wowhead, as promised, posted a much more detailed page on their acquisition by (as they put it) the ZAM network. According to Tim "Evilseed" Sullivan, Wowhead's CEO, "[ZAM] have no relation with IGE. They are all about content and building communities and tools to help gamers, just like what we've done with Wowhead." A very interesting Q&A follows; here are the bits that answer the questions that I've been most concerned about:Q: Didn't you sell to a bunch of gold sellers?Tim: Nope, and that would have been a deal killer. The ZAM guys are an independent content business, and they don't promote RMT (Real Money Trade). Period. You will never see gold ads on Wowhead or their other ZAM sites. We made sure that was true before proceeding.Q: What is the deal with Affinity Media? Why all the secrecy?John [Maffei, president of ZAM]: Affinity Media is a privately held company with gaming assets that operate independently. This includes the ZAM Network. The reason we are not more forthcoming in what the company owns and does it there are a lot of moving pieces. At one point, the company owned IGE but it was sold this spring. It was a private transaction so we can't reveal details. As head of the content network, I was thrilled we sold.
Wowhead sold for $1M? Update: Confirmed.
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Wowhead_sold_for_1_million'; We're still waiting for official confirmation on this, but word is that Wowhead, my favorite WoW database, was just sold to Affinity Media for around $1 million. The source claims to have worked at IGE back in the day, so he seems somewhat credible. The rub here is that Affinity Media used to own IGE, the notorious gold dealing empire, but according to this Gamasutra interview from a few weeks ago, they sold IGE, and "If you go to any of our sites, you'll never see a gold-selling ad." Affinity Media also owns Thottbot and Allakhazam, so if this rumor of Wowhead acquisition is correct, they will now own all three of the major databases. So far we have no official confirmation of this story; WoW Insider is trying to reach both Wowhead and Affinity Media for comment. But if the rumors are true, our supposed last refuge against gold sellers may have just been sold.[ Thanks, Ahmed! ]Update: Wowhead has posted a confirmation on their front page and says that since IGE is "out of the picture," they decided to join Affinity Media's ZAM content network. They also promise more information later today.
WoW Moviewatch: With a little help from Wowhead
This may be the first time I've seen a video about a WoW web site. Wowhead is a site I'm very fond of personally, for reasons that I think this video makes clear: how else are you supposed to know where your SWORD is? The animated short is by the people behind the "Looking for Group" comic, and I must say I'm pretty impressed with the animation quality. Take that, rat!Previously on WoW Moviewatch
Transcripts posted from "Life After 70" chat with WoW Insider
Our good friends at Xfire have posted the transcripts of last Wednesday's chat about "Life After 70," which I was able to moderate. The guests-- Teza from World of Raids, Nopher from Last Resort on Kazzak-EU, and Skosiris from Wowhead (Awake from Nihilum couldn't make it because they heard Vashj had been hotfixed)-- all did a great job answering the metric ton of questions I tried to push at them, and the "viewers" had a lot of interesting stuff to say as well.You can see the transcript from the Main Room here, and the transcript from the Open Debate room over here. Both are definitely interesting read throughs. Both of the higher level guilds echoed what Death and Taxes have said-- they use Paladins to heal, and shadow priests to DPS. They also told me that the loot from the 25 man raids has just not matched up to the loot from heroics or Karazhan (although hopefully that will be corrected a bit in the upcoming 2.1 patch). And perhaps most interesting, they said that the drop to 25 man raids didn't create that much drama in their guilds-- for them, the most drama came from the 10 man limit in Karazhan.All in all, we had a great time, and I'll thank Xfire again for putting it all together (especially Nicolas Cerrato for coordinating everything this time around). If you were able to make it out to the chat (it was set earlier in the afternoon in America, so Europeans could have a prime time chat for themselves), thanks to you as well.
WoW Insider returns to Xfire for "Life After 70"
The good folks at Xfire have asked us back to their "Two-Handed Sword" debate club (those of you who joined us last time will remember how much fun it was), and this time they're moving us up in the world: I'm going to moderate. Yes indeedy! The topic is "Life After 70," and they've got some great guests on. Teza from World of Raids is returning as well, and because they're making a point to focus on European players this time around, Awake from Nihilum will be on, as well as Nopher from Last Resort. And the list of guests is finished off by Evilseed from the very informative Wowhead.com.The chat will be all online, so to join us, you'll have to download and install Xfire, but don't worry, it's free and extremely simple. If you do join us, you'll be able to "listen" in live, as well as join the Open room chat to talk with other players about what we're discussing (that room was even crazier than the main room last time-- I loved it). So the chat will be next Wednesday, April the 11th, at 2pm Eastern time. That's 20:00 CEST if you're in Europe-- they're giving you guys a chance to have a nice primetime even this time. Please join up with us and say hello-- I want lots of WoW Insider representation!And as I said, this time around I'm not just a guest, I'll be moderating. That means I have to ask questions, I'm pretty sure, so if you have any questions or discussion ideas you'd like me to bring to the chat, please post them in the comments below, and if I choose your question, I'll even mention your name during the chat as a WoW insider reader. Thanks! See you on Xfire next Wednesday!
April Fools Alert #4: Blizzard buys Wowhead
Skosiris of Wowhead graciously let us know that they are being bought by Blizzard, for no less than nine million dollars! This is great news for my favorite WoW data site. In addition, Skosiris and Evilseed will be joining Blizzard as WoW's new lead class designers. They promise the following immediate improvements: Removal of the Hunter class Implementation of Pandaren as a playable race New Engineering schematic for Mages to let them create an actual vending machine Kudos, Wowhead, for making it big-time. I hope this doesn't affect the quality of your layout, though; make sure not to let Blizzard's web designers near your site. And as far as Hunters go -- it's about time!
Beta key giveaway at Wowhead
One of my favorite WoW database sites, Wowhead, is currently running a contest to give away 100 coveted Burning Crusade beta keys, as well as a 20" LCD monitor at the end of the contest. For a chance to win, all you have to do is post comments, send them screenshots, or use their client to upload data. Sounds pretty easy to me.I enjoy Wowhead not only for their clean, low-calorie design, but also because, unlike some other prominent WoW sites, they don't accept ads from gold sellers. So go over there and take one for the team by winning a beta pass!Edit: I've been alerted that WoW Insider itself apparently features gold ads. It would be sort of ironic if they were contextually triggered by the word "gold" in this very post....Anyway, sorry for that bit of pot-calling-the-kettle-black-ism. That's what I get for always using AdBlock, I suppose.[Thanks, Silvertusk]
Comments wiped on Thottbot
Sometime today, it seems as though the comments on Thottbot.com were wiped. Maybe. Some Thottbot entries, like this one for Atiesh, have plenty of old comments still on them. But others which definitely used to have comments, like the Bad Mojo Mask, seem to be wiped clean.Which is definitely trouble, because while there are a lot of WoW resources out there, Thottbot was well known not only for its completeness (they even had spells in there that were only used by NPCs or objects), but for the player comments on each quest. Not only could you find out where a mob spawned, but you could see players telling you how hard it was, how they had beaten it with their 49 lock by chain fearing, and whether the rewards were good or bad. Without the comments, Thott's just not Thott.There's a few rumors floating around as to why this happened-- it could just be a server mistake, or it could be an attempt by Thott to clean out the gold sellers that were advertising in the comments. Some of the comments may have disappeared and come back, so it could be just a temporary thing (unfortunately the site news doesn't provide any clues because... it was wiped, too). I've dropped a note to Thott himself to see if he can give us any feedback on the subject-- I'll let you know if we hear any moreSo if you've ever used Thottbot in the past, now's the perfect time to give back-- leave a comment on a few quests or items you know well to help rebuild the database. I'm sure a site like WoWHead would love to take advantage of Thott while they're down, but Thott's the first and original. I would hate to see them go down like this, especially if it's a tech mistake of some kind.Update: Comments are now back on the Bad Mojo Mask entry, as well as on the site news. Whatever the problem was, it looks like it might have been only temporary.
